no filesystem fragment found?

[devin09]

so here's the story: my xD memory card was screwed up so i had to format it. when i tried to run a "complete format recovery" on the card, it says the following error:

No filesystem fragment found. Unable to find partitions. We advise:
1) Run format recovery on the "physical drive" (identified by number, not a letter), or
2) Run a Complete Search for the files you want to recover

i already did no. 1. when i did no. 2 i get 0 results.

what exactly does the error message means and how do i fix it?

[GDH]

When some cameras format a card they erase the data by writing 0's over the drive.

It sounds like this is what has happened in your case and that the card now only contains 0's.

I suggest your run Recover My Files;
Click on the buttons to manually select opions;
In the advanced tab, select the option to "show physical drives" and also change the search level to "sector";
Click ok to run the search and in the drive selection window click the physial drive that is the same size as your memory card.

Does this search find any files?

Another test you can do is to go to http://www.getdata.com/download.php and download EzyImager. Take an image of the card and store it as a file on your hard drive called image.raw. The image should be the same size as your memory card. Now compress it with WinZip and have a look at the size of the files. If it compresses down to ony 1 or 2 megabytes then the card is definitely full of 0's.

[devin09]

in the drive selection window, i don't see the physical drive, unless i set the options to "search for lost files". is that how it works?

[GDH]

If go to OPTIONS - ADVANCED and put a tick in the box to display physical drives then you should see it in any type of search.

[devin09]

i tried your suggestion, but there's no result too. and the search completed in less than a second.

[devin09]

so i tried the ezy imager test. the original raw file was 55MB, but the final zipped image is only 64kb. so i gues you're right, it's been written with 0's. any other suggestions?

[GDH]

I think your card is empty. Please email me the zipped image.

Thank you.

[devin09]

sent the file to you. thanks.

[devin09]

did you manage to find anything, GDH?

[GDH]

Hi,

I didnt receive the file - can you please send it again.

Thanks.